The Gift of Immortality

Abba Eban, speaking at a dinner in Washington in 1952, in which Israel honored President Truman for his contributions to the early successes of the Jewish State:

We do not have orders or decorations. Our material strength is small and greatly strained. We have no tradition of formality or chivalry. One thing, however, is within the power of Israel to confer. It is the gift of immortality. Those whose names are bound up with Israel’s history never become forgotten. We are, therefore, now writing the name of President Truman upon the map of our country. In a village of farmers near the airport of Lydda at the gateway to Israel, we establish a monument, not of dead stone but of living hope. Thus, when the eyes of men alight on Truman Village in Israel, they will pause in their successive generations to recall the strong chain which, at the middle of the 20th Century, drew the strongest and the smallest democracies together with imperishable links.